Spell checking does not work in Firefox Developer Edition. How can I fix this?
When I am entering text into a text box (for example a textarea html tag) with Firefox Developer Edition 61.0b2 (64-bit), and many previous versions, every single word is underlined as red. When I right click and select the language, US English is the only option. To begin to debug this I started firefox in safe mode from the command line. The first time I place my cursor in a text box, the following appears in my terminal:
error: file:///usr/lib/firefox-developer-edition/dictionaries/en_US.aff: cannot open
error: file:///usr/lib/firefox-developer-edition/dictionaries/en_US.dic: cannot open
error: file:///usr/lib/firefox-developer-edition/dictionaries/en_US.aff: cannot open
This seems like something one might expect to see considering the the spell checking problem. However, if I run: "ls -l /usr/lib/firefox-developer-edition/dictionaries/" on my system I get the following:
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3090 May 9 23:34 en_US.aff
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 545233 May 9 23:34 en_US.dic
So the dictionary files are definitely there. Furthermore I have opened them to make sure they are populated with the words from the English language.
To remedy the issue I have tried "resetting" firefox so that I have a new profile, but this did nothing. Interestingly enough, when I run the non-developer edition of firefox, the spell checking works as expected.
How can I go about fixing this issue?
Modified by mioln
Chosen solution
Let’s do a full clean re-install;
Download Firefox https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/
Save the file. Then Close Firefox.
Using your file browser, open the Programs Folder on your computer.
Windows: C:\Program Files C:\Program Files (x86)
Mac: Open the "Applications" folder. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-download-and-install-firefox-mac
Linux: Check your user manual. If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it. See Install Firefox on Linux; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux
If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder Firefox in your home directory. http://www.mozilla.org/firefox#desktop ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Look for, and remove any Mozilla or Firefox program folders. Do not remove the Mozilla Thunderbird folder if there is one.
Do Not remove any profile folders.
After rebooting the computer, run a registry scanner if you have one. Then run the installer. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ If there is a problem, start your Computer in safe mode and try again.
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Linux+Safe+Mode This shows how to Start all Computers in Safe Mode; Free Online Encyclopedia
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (4)
Chosen Solution
Let’s do a full clean re-install;
Download Firefox https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/
Save the file. Then Close Firefox.
Using your file browser, open the Programs Folder on your computer.
Windows: C:\Program Files C:\Program Files (x86)
Mac: Open the "Applications" folder. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-download-and-install-firefox-mac
Linux: Check your user manual. If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it. See Install Firefox on Linux; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux
If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder Firefox in your home directory. http://www.mozilla.org/firefox#desktop ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Look for, and remove any Mozilla or Firefox program folders. Do not remove the Mozilla Thunderbird folder if there is one.
Do Not remove any profile folders.
After rebooting the computer, run a registry scanner if you have one. Then run the installer. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ If there is a problem, start your Computer in safe mode and try again.
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Linux+Safe+Mode This shows how to Start all Computers in Safe Mode; Free Online Encyclopedia
In my Firefox version the dictionary names have a hyphen(en-US) and not an underscore.
Can you install the dictionary in the profile folder?
I downloaded firefox developer edition from the website as instructed and it worked as intended. I overwrote the executable that my package manager installed with the downloaded one.
Everything works now. Thanks.
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